KeyForge: Call of the Archons - The World’s First Unique Deck Game coming soon

I think that app and its integration with the game may prove to be more innovative and impactful than the game. That you can use it to earn points, redeem points for prizes, and manage your collection while also serving as a front end for organized play including real time handicapping and regulation is pretty awesome. I don’t know of anything else like that, but it’s a long way from having a DCI judge have to log on to a web site and manually record a bunch of stuff after FNM.

Hoping my cards show up tomorrow. Family is coming in next week and I’ve got some cousins and a brother in law that will probably really like it.

charlest wrote: It should even out over time, but yes I do think draw matters. This is part of what makes the game interesting though. That tough choice is the central mechanism of the game.

Draw matters in every card game. Thanks to the decks only being 36 cards I've found they inevitably even out pretty quick.

Interesting thing on the subject, you would think card draw is much stronger in this game than it actually is. Unless it gives you a lot of the house you've already called or put you over hand size it doesn't do all that much. What IS good is "archiving". Anything archived goes to a face down set aside zone that you may choose to pick up (or not) when you call your house for the turn. It lets you save up for huge combos while still cycling cards in hand. Super cool.

Vysetron wrote: Draw matters in every card game. Thanks to the decks only being 36 cards I've found they inevitably even out pretty quick.

Interesting thing on the subject, you would think card draw is much stronger in this game than it actually is. Unless it gives you a lot of the house you've already called or put you over hand size it doesn't do all that much. What IS good is "archiving". Anything archived goes to a face down set aside zone that you may choose to pick up (or not) when you call your house for the turn. It lets you save up for huge combos while still cycling cards in hand. Super cool.

I was big into magic, but like everyone else mana screw can make an overall fun experience dreadful. Looking at the VS system, the key to winning in that one was to draw (or be holding) a character with a cost equal to the turn round. For this one it seems like having a hand full of the same house is the big advantage. Being able to consistently play twice as many cards as your opponent due solely to luck seems strong.

But that is the nature of competitive card games. If I am playing Gin Rummy and you draw two aces, two kings, two queens, and one 10 you are going to trounce me most likely.

mtagge wrote: I was big into magic, but like everyone else mana screw can make an overall fun experience dreadful. Looking at the VS system, the key to winning in that one was to draw (or be holding) a character with a cost equal to the turn round. For this one it seems like having a hand full of the same house is the big advantage. Being able to consistently play twice as many cards as your opponent due solely to luck seems strong.

But that is the nature of competitive card games. If I am playing Gin Rummy and you draw two aces, two kings, two queens, and one 10 you are going to trounce me most likely.

The other thing that messes with the tempo is choosing when to pick a house to use what's on your board VS playing new things out of hand. Just earlier today I had 5 cards in hand of one house and picked another one anyway because I needed to handle board problems. It's deeper than it appears, I guess is what I'm saying.

All of that isn't to say that draw doesn't matter. It absolutely does. It's still a card game.

4 Horsemen Decks are going for as much as $270 on eBay. For fuck’s sake! Hope I pull two!

So glad I nabbed a display...may be able to finance my entire purchase with some good old fashioned speculating.

It looks like there are some seeded combos that drive value as well as number of rares.

So, explain this to me because I still don't understand. Can I be successful with just any old Keyforge deck, or, do I need a good one? I thought that the design of this game was supposed to level the playing field regarding the decks? Now, I'm seeing the free market show us that some decks are more valuable than other decks since the prices reflect a disparity in value. Is this because some decks are better than other decks and you have to randomly keep purchasing them to get a good one, or, is it because the leveling components of the game that will nerf overpowered decks hasn't come into play yet until the Keyforge App analyses the data and all of the decks are registered and processed? Keyforge overall is very unique since each deck is registered with the Keyforge App and so are the plays and outcomes for the decks, right?

One other issue that seems to have come up with Keyforge is that people may be dumping the decks out of the FFG packaging, revealing the contents of the deck, and then selling them for a value based on the disclosed combinations of cards in the deck. Others have reported that the Keyforge packaging isn't really secure enough in protecting the sanctity of the decks because douchebags are opening the Keyforge deck boxes, looking at the deck, seeing the contents of the deck since the wrapper is clear, and then resealing these opened boxes to sell if the deck is weak to unsuspecting buyers. Is this an unanticipated problem with Keyforge? I know that MtG card packages are tamper resistant and sealed in such a way that there's no way to easily tamper with them or hide the fact that they've been opened. Did FFG make a mistake here with their packaging and will this be a problem? Is this a real problem?

I have played a fair number of games with a variety of decks. A good player will usually beat a bad player. However, there are differences in deck quality. Generally, decks with more creatures will be stronger. Creatures are used for both stopping your opponent and advancing your plan in this game. They are the normal way to remove enemy creatures.

I think that the early prices for some decks are ridiculous. There are almost certainly stronger decks than those expensive ones. I think the market will settle down a bit. The average variance in the decks I have played with is not too great, so I think this game is a good one to scratch the CCG itch. I think this will be my choice for sealed deck events, though I do not live close enough to a game store to do them.

Michael Barnes wrote: 4 Horsemen Decks are going for as much as $270 on eBay.

Seriously?! Wow, maybe I should sell mine. They're not even that game-shattering, particularly when you pull Death first.

Also, it's probably just me being way too easily amused, but any game that lets me attach Rocket Boots to a Shark is Game of the Year material!

birdman37 wrote:

Michael Barnes wrote: 4 Horsemen Decks are going for as much as $270 on eBay.

Seriously?! Wow, maybe I should sell mine. They're not even that game-shattering, particularly when you pull Death first.

Real talk, horsemen are super overrated. If you crack a deck with them and can get your money back from some guy on eBay, go for it. They're super draw dependent and their effects are only really strong if they're sequenced correctly. Now if you happen to get them in a deck with a good amount of archiving, THAT'S more solid. You still need the rest of the deck to stand up though.

On the whole I've found player skill matters a lot. Our release tournament yesterday was a blast. The top end (myself included, thank you very much) were all card game vets. I got to look over the eventual winner's list after the event and it was just a solid mix of cards. No gimmicks, no horsemen or even any crazy rares, just solid bodies and some impactful actions piloted well. It made me really happy to see.

Yeah, we’ll see long it takes between me opening a 4 Horseman deck and that joker landing on eBay. Talk about a hot minute.

The secondary market is awesome right now. Total Wild West. Nobody really knows what anything is worth, the value is all Dutch Tuliped up right now, based only on a couple of special cards and some decks having more rares than others. I do believe that any decks that have “banned” names are going to be the Black Lotuses here, though.

Something that may be really interesting is how PROVEN decks may increase in value. If someone has a top-performing deck, they are winning tournaments and so forth with it...that could make some decks quite valuable assuming the organized play scene takes off. FFG may have to regulate that- if a deck wins the world championship or whatever, they’d really need to ban it...because someone else could buy the deck for $$$ and play it themselves.

I didn’t get jack in my display box as far as “money” decks go but I don’t really care- the game is much better than I expected, I was ready to just speculate the shit out of the decks and just keep the starter for now but I’ve gone ahead and busted open all the cards.

It is a -great- game.

One more thing - ignore the sceptics, the Chain mechanic is brilliant. My 11yo daughter is keenly into this game, and all we do is assign me 18-20 chains at the start of a match, and we're good to go! I pull no punches, neither does she, and we've both racked up wins and losses this way. If one of us is on a particularly hot streak, we just assign less or more chains accordingly next game. Marvellous stuff.

I also like how the chains balance things in-game. I played a Dis card yesterday that just devastated my friends massive Sanctum position- he has 5 creatures on the field, total board control. In exchange for Wrath of God-ing the board, I took 3 chains. So there was a penalty for such a big play.

I think the Archive is an interesting thing too...how you can “back pocket” cards. It’s not like Magic where you draw you 10-drop finisher on the first hand and it a)clogs your hand and b) is vulnerable to discard effects.

I would like to try this game but it's blown out of the local game store. I can try again on Wednesday. Thanks, speculators!

Also noted this is one of those situations where the vendor knows the "display box" is a SKU. It has an MSRP, and that MSRP is higher than the price of component parts. A deck is $9.95; a display box is 12x decks, and $119.95.

Jeb, I’mma caution you AWAY from this game. It is totally as the kids say your jam. I don’t want you to go broke trying to pull a 4 Horsemen deck.

$92.50 is the going rate for a display on yonder eBay.

Sounds cool. Highly variable meta, Richard Garfield (MTG, Netrunner, Robo Rally), inherently the best parts and fewer of the worst of a format (Sealed) I always detested...

But collectible. No way. Maybe- MAYBE -I'll think about getting into a one-off tournament that the local FLGS holds, like I've been one-off drafting every couple years just to get a game in. But, no. Not gonna do it. I'm Roberto Duran (No mas.)